


plastics

by phalangine



Category: X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Charles' Prison Visits, Erik is a Mess, Fluff and Angst, Introspection, M/M, Prison, Set During One of Erik's Numerous Stints in Prison
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-11
Updated: 2016-06-11
Packaged: 2018-07-14 10:51:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7168124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phalangine/pseuds/phalangine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik has been convicted and locked away for years, but Charles still comes to visit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	plastics

The check in process is tedious at low security facilities; medium security involves ceaseless frustration; maximum security requires patience and absolute obedience. Security at a true supermax prison involves a level of scrutiny and physical examination that makes even good men gnash their teeth. Charles Xavier, good as he is, should be able to grin and bear it. Technically, he does. He never hassles the guards for doing their jobs. When it comes down to it, however, he is an extremely powerful man living in an inherently uncomfortable situation. Sometimes he can’t help but grease the wheels.

As his visits tend to involve an otherwise contraband chess set, telepathy makes excellent grease.

He hasn't visited in three months, overworked running the school. It isn't easy, taking time off to come here, or he would come more often than their established bi-weekly visit. Not that he intends to tell Erik that. Bad enough Charles is late; excuses will only make the man's temper sour.

The guards recognize him by now; even without his nudging their attention away, they're inclined to dismiss him. He can't avoid their surface thoughts when they see him, though, and the patronizing patter of confusion- how is _this_ man so powerful he can visit Magneto?- and eye rolling- does he even know what the inmate did?- as if Charles is some foolish, desperate fop with an imbalance of money and sense, come to save a monster, rankles. He knows full well what this particular felon did. He was there every day of that farce of a trial. He knows every obituary by heart. He's seen for himself that there is no monster in this secret prison.

Most of all, he knows Erik.

Unlike the grim-faced man frisking him, Charles knows _why_ Erik is who he is. And that, more than the years between them and the oaths they swore, more even than his sadness the meaning of this prison, is what keeps bringing him back here.

The guard who brought him down is about to open the door to the cell (A sharp, "Back to the wall!" is all the warning Erik gets to make himself presentable, and the muffled snap of his mind against the order is the first assurance Charles gets of Erik's well-being in more than a hundred days) when Charles catches a deeper thread of thought from his friend’s subconscious. _…here, been having the damnedest time keeping the mutie freak in, wish the boys upstairs would just give them a fucking conjugal..._

The content of the thought is hardly surprising. Charles could almost laugh at how common a reaction it is. Erik is difficult even when he's among friends and in the best of moods, neither of which is the case here. He will have picked up on the guards' feelings about mutants, which will have made him significantly more disagreeable. As for the conjugal visit...

Charles carefully gives no sign he’s overheard as he moves past the guard and into Erik's cell. Many people have similar ideas when they learn about Erik and him. They are the bitterest of enemies, the oldest of friends.

Still, the thought tickles at him, and Charles resolves to bring it up with Erik once they've aired their issues.

Going by Erik's expression as Charles rolls through the narrow gateway, that may be a long time coming. The bags under his eyes are deep and dark. His face has grown more deeply lined, the skin sallow. Even his eyes are dull. Only his mouth shows any recognition of Charles' arrival. It quirks up for a second, then turns down on itself, twisting Erik's lips into a grimace that flashes his teeth. Charles returns the look as steadily as he can, but it's hard. Being judged a failure by his oldest, closest friend _hurts_.

"What's this?" Erik croaks eventually, tilting his head like a confounded puppy. "Come to see your wayward charge, Charles?"

"My wayward friend, you mean. And yes, I have. Finally."

"I didn't say that."

"No, you didn't," Charles agrees. "But I know you, Erik. I know how you think. I didn't forget you; I certainly wasn't delighting in the thought of you being held here alone."

The smile Erik gives him- still with his head cocked, as if he's forgotten he's done it- is as ghastly as it is foreign to Erik's face. Another habit inherited from Shaw. Another bit of Erik smothered beneath that monster's bloody mantle. "Don't you?"

"You know damn well damn well I don't."

As quickly as he puffed himself up with rage, Erik deflates. "No, I suppose you don't. Why is that? The rest of mutantkind disowned me. They'd leave me to rot in here just to prop themselves up for a few moments longer, but you... Here you are. In my cell, come to keep me sane.”

“Erik…”

"Is that how you've chosen to punish me, Charles?” he asks, curious. “Keep me in tact enough to remember all my sins and placate your guilt at once? It isn't abandonment if you're busy, after all. You have a world to shape now. Without me, it can be as peaceful as you always wanted."

Lit up with sudden energy, Erik hops off his mattress. With the power-dampening collar on, he can't soothe himself with metal; he can only pace the narrow length of his cell. Charles and his chair take up almost half of it, leaving Erik to work himself up to a froth in a tight circle.

Rather than interfere, which experience has shown will only further agitate Erik, Charles considers the logistics of swapping his chair for Erik's bed and, in a move worthy of his top ten non-emergency physical bungles, makes an ungraceful attempt at the transition. He does make it to the mattress without hitting the floor, but hauling himself onto it involves a humiliating display of grunting and sweating. Erik may not appreciate having his bed soldered into the floor and wall, but in this moment, Charles does.

Lost as Erik is in the conflicting eddies of his thoughts, he doesn't notice any of it. His attention is focused entirely inward in a way Charles can't help but find repulsive- Erik has always been an outward thinker. It's one of his more endearing quirks. Charles would have pegged Erik as someone who hoards his thoughts, but that would require a more private personality. Erik is anything but. He has clear boundaries- his mind is a map of lines detailing "mine" and "not mine" and, in some of the deeper parts, "ours", but sharing is easy for him, because he has measures and countermeasures forever keeping the balance. Use my bed linens, fine, but damage them and something of yours will be broken in recompense. Things are simple, yet even his thoughts, which most people hold tight with paranoia, are open to anyone with the power to look.

Charles may not always enjoy what he finds, but he does appreciate the welcome.

When Erik finally paces himself into calm, Charles feels it. He's made it one whole chapter and half of a second deeper into his book when Erik's mind shifts. The storm of nonsensical thoughts and knotted strings of emotion abruptly comes to a halt, overridden by a spike of confusion, Erik's mind slamming to a halt and jangling like an off-key note.

"You're on the bed."

Charles smiles. "Yes, darling. Well done."

"Why?"

"My chair's not terribly comfortable- ah, you did notice the recent, hm, changes. Bit of an incident with the MRI machine Hank's been working on. Don't look at me like that- I wasn't in it at the time. Anyway, you looked like you were in need of a bit of hysterics, so I thought I'd try your bed." He presses on the mattress, feels the springs move under his hand. “It’s rather shoddy, isn’t it?”

It takes Erik a moment to digest this. He has an answer ready, but his mind is reluctant to share it. He keeps going over what Charles said. Running his mind over the words, tracing the pitch of Charles' voice, comparing the different ways the two of them shape their words. Charles leaves him to it- he knew before he came that Erik would need more time than usual.

Not that his friend doesn't understand what he hears. More like... Erik, despite the ferocious independence central to him, is like every other human. Mutant- whatever. He was born to be social. Perhaps not sociable, though he might have been in a world without Sebastian Shaw or neo-Nazis, but he does open up in the right company. Without the freedom to find that on his own terms, Charles' visits are Erik’s best opportunity to get the contact his sanity requires. Charles won't fault him for needing time to digest it.

It really is disgraceful to lay waste a mind like this. Erik's or any other. But politicians can't feel the creeping rot that takes root in an inmate's mind. They can't experience the desperate, illogical defenses the human mind will construct when it has a sea of tedium and fear for brick and mortar.

Out of nowhere, something heavy lands on his lap. Erik, he realizes, just as he's about to shove it away. The rough scrape of his close-shorn hair gives him away as surely as the soft brush of his mind.

 _Hello_ , it murmurs as it nudges against him again, subconscious settling in with a little more care than Erik's body. _Hello, I know you. Remember me?_

And, quieter still, _Please remember me._

 _Hello,_ Charles soothes it lowly, smoothing his hand over Erik's head. _I know you. I'll always remember you._

It has been a long time since they were this close. Charles generally doesn't try to encourage it. It only brings up memories of a time they can never get back. The fissures in Erik's mind have grown too broad to ignore; the soft part of Erik is too delicate to refuse what comfort Charles can provide.

He concentrates on the shivering in Erik's psyche rather than the sharp poke of ribs in his thighs. He can actually do something with the former.

Louder than before, up in the range where Erik will hear the words, he beckons him closer. _I can feel your exhaustion from here. Go to sleep, old friend. You've done enough._

 

**_xx_ **

 

When he wakes up, Erik is curled up on his side and someone is humming in his head. It takes him longer than he would care to admit to realize he's the one humming.

His body feels heavy, but it’s a good feeling.

"Welcome back," Charles says from above, voice rough despite the softness of the greeting. His eyes are lined with bruised-looking half-circles, but his mind is pulsing happily where it's draped over Erik's.

For a long moment, Erik considers saying hello and getting up. Self-preservation demands it. He won't survive in here if he relies on Charles. The desperation he had felt when Charles failed to show on schedule is proof of that. The smart move would be to send Charles away for good.

"Yes, do try to push me out of your life, Erik. That's worked so well in the past." Charles says it mildly, but a ghost of a sensation, a flick of Erik's ear, belies the tone.

It wasn't four years ago that Erik was Magneto. He had a cape and armor, and he wore a helmet to shield himself from prying telepathic fingers as he tore down facility after facility. It was the most alive he'd felt in years, but it feels like a dream now.

"You didn't do that, did you?" he asks, too muzzy to summon up his usual suspicion. If Charles wants to get away with something, he will.

For some reason, he never seems to want to.

"I didn't."

Erik nods. Charles' trousers are soft where they rub against his face. He'd almost forgotten how good soft things are. It will only make losing it harder on him later, but it feels so nice in the moment, Erik can't help but run his fingers over the smooth fabric.

A flash of discomfort comes and goes. Erik lets it fade without comment. It isn't his, and he's learned over the years it doesn't need to acknowledged.

In this way, he and Charles are nothing alike. Charles will hold his suffering and fury close, silently working at them until they overflow. Erik is the opposite- his pain, his people's pain, must be accounted for, the ones responsible given their reckoning. Silence never made anything better. Let the world damn him as a terrorist- better that than a coward. He never let mutant pain go unvoiced.

If that sometimes left collateral damage, he can regret that. But he won't bow his head and beg forgiveness from the ones who made him necessary.

He never got to face the people who said he murdered their loved ones. Odd phrase, that. "Loved ones." What does that mean? Does it include pets? Friends? The entirety of a family, no matter how distant?

Does Erik have any? The Brotherhood was a family. He mourned when their numbers thinned. There were mutant brothers and sisters who cared about him. There must have been. Has he lost them all, too?

He hates these thoughts. They plague him now, sensing his confinement. He's tried to blame Charles, but it never sticks.

"Thought not," he mumbles. "You're not that subtle."

"Oi! I can be subtle."

Erik shakes his head. He ends up rubbing his face across Charles' thigh and has to fight to refocus on what he was saying. "You like to lecture too much."

Charles' response is another mental ear flick. Erik considers actually flicking Charles’ ear but settles for thinking a collage of rude words at him, which only serves to make Charles laughs. Erik doesn't have the energy to fight, and he suspects Charles doesn't either.

They stay as they are, Charles leaning against the cell wall and Erik resting with his head on Charles' lap, for long minutes. Erik counts the slow rhythm of Charles' breaths and remembers what it was like to fall asleep with a full belly and a friend in the second hotel bed. He wonders, as secretly as he can, if Charles misses the early days of their friendship as much as Erik does. If he regrets their divergent paths as Erik cannot.

With his eyes closed and Charles' hand stroking his hair, Erik could almost replace the stiff prison mattress with an equally stiff one in a cheap motel. His jumpsuit could almost be new pajamas, one of the sets in ghastly paisley Charles foisted on him in the early days.

It doesn't do to dwell on the past, but there's little alternative when the present and future look the same.

"Hank asked after you the other day," Charles volunteers out of the blue.

"You assured him I won't be ripping any building down in the near future, yes?"

Fingers scratching lightly at Erik’s head, Charles corrects him. "He was more concerned with your health, to be honest. Apparently, prisons aren't very concerned with inmate nutrition, particularly not among the mutant population."

Erik doesn't let out the rude noise he wants to make. He focuses instead on the new information he's been given, and the task of getting more.

"I didn't know Beast cared," he drawls. Nothing gets Charles talking like righteous indignation.

True to form, Charles has an argument masquerading as reassurance ready. "Of course he cares. We all do." He pauses, and Erik feels the mental wall he's been leaning on shift. The constant movement of minds when they actively think is nauseating; what Charles finds appealing about the experience is beyond him. "But you're not wrong- he wasn't unhappy to see you in cuffs. He's a government liaison now, did I tell you? Issues concerning mutants- things we need addressed and things the government wants- are his responsibility."

"Made a bureaucrat from a scientist, did you? And to think, we once dismissed alchemy."

 _Hush, you._ Despite the words, the thought is free from reprimand. Charles' mind is plush with unwarranted affection.

It used to overwhelm him to think about Charles' depth of emotion. How can anyone sustain that? How does he survive when he finds something worthy in every soul?

The past few years have convinced him not to question the wellspring of forgiveness that leads Charles to visit him. He doesn't need to understand Charles. The well is deep and the water cool. And Charles continues to draw the bucket for him.

Permitting him to soothe his conscience is one of few kindnesses Erik can give his friend. The price of the indulgence is hardly a price at all.

"And the other children?" he asks, rolling slowly onto his back. His spine twinges but allows it. "They're well?"

Charles moves on to scratching Erik's head. It feels good. Better than good. Better than anything since Charles' last visit.

"More than that," Charles hums. A spike of adrenaline hits Erik at the unaccountable sorrow in the words. He is aware that Charles is not unaffected by the courses their lives have taken, but the strength of his concern echoes in Charles' mind and shakes into Erik's. "They're the future, Erik, and, my god, the future is beautiful."

Chuckling darkly, Charles tugs lightly at Erik's hair. "A few remind me of you. They're hurting and angry, and they don't know what to do with it all. And I don't know how to fix it."

 _Fix you,_ Erik fills in, and for the first time since he lay down, his anger flares up.

"You're not wrong, but you're not quite right." _I only ever wanted you to be happy._ Charles sighs. _You're my friend. I wanted you to have a better life in a better world. But you chose anger. Every bloody time, you chose to whet your grudge rather than make peace. It brought you here, Erik, where there's nothing I can do for you. But the children haven't gone this far. I can still lead them to the better path._

He says the last with a ferocity Erik had almost forgotten he had. He is too surprised to feel the sick clench that normally accompanies Charles' assertions that Erik is in need of saving. Of all people, Erik ought to know Charles is neither small nor unthreatening. _He's learned to make use of his condition_ , he thinks proudly. Charles was never an especially large man; equipped as he now is with the wheelchair he is even more easily dismissed. What danger is there in a man defeated by stairs?

But that's a baser, human assumption. It assumes Charles' body is his weapon. Even presented with his mutation, baselines want to categorize him by his body.

Charles is anything but.

"Tell me about them."

"Hmm?"

Erik sighs. "The children, Charles. The ones you’re worried about. Honestly, old friend, are you sure you're a telepath?"

"I rather thought I was," Charles answers drily. "Considering I can hear you strategizing over my wheelchair. You do realize I didn't get shot in the back on purpose."

He isn't upset by Erik's line of thought. If anything, he's amused by it.

Resting his hand over Erik's on his belly, Charles squeezes it tight.

"Time has changed us both. I've grown accustomed to the chair- just as I grew used to your horrendous costumes. Neither is my fault, and only the latter was intentional.” He pauses, curiosity radiating off him. “You never did explain how you got them so fast. They fit you too well not to be bespoke."

_I cannot believe I miss the cape._

The reminder of where he is- what he is- is a gentle one, but it dissipates the remains of the calm from earlier nonetheless. With clarity comes the inevitable reminder that he isn't truly seeing everything- his gift remains beyond his reach. He can't even feel the suggestion of it. The wheelchair's metal bones gleam smoothly when he tilts his head to look, but he can't feel them. He can't feel himself either, his blood just the sound in ears when he wakes up alone in a room that is and isn't his, that hides when he's not sure whether he's standing or tumbling through space and the guards come in like Greek gods on the mortal realm, impervious and in greater number. Even Charles, his only visitor, is a shade. He looks like the man Erik knew, talks with the right voice, thinks and touches with the same mind, his fingers the right shape when they clasp his hand, his smell the one Erik remembers from hours pressed side to side in cars and planes and once in a bed in a strip joint while a beautiful woman hovered in the air before them, but he can't be sure it’s him without a map of the iron flowing through his body.

_My friend, you must calm your mind._

Easier said than done, when nothing is as it ought to be.

Somewhere far away, he feels warm. A single point of it, heat from a source outside himself, resting like a kindly stranger on his body.

_Follow it back._

Erik does. He gets waylaid without a compass to guide him, but Charles' voice calls him back to the path each time, as he always has.

When Erik feels himself settle back into his skin, he opens his eyes, and there Charles is, frowning at him the way that means Erik did something Charles cannot account for. It makes him look old.

He really does have the brightest eyes Erik has ever seen. In the unending gray blur of the doghouse the humans keep him in, Charles is unexpected Technicolor. His eyes are bluer than Erik remembers them- paler than the guards' uniforms but brighter and more alive when he looks at Erik. His skin is pink along his cheeks where his long hair can't reach. His lips are red, and if Erik reached up and touched them, he knows they would be soft.

How long has it been since he touched something just because it felt nice? How long since there was something he wanted to touch at all?

He stares up at Charles for too long, but Charles doesn't protest. He holds Erik's gaze with his own.

It isn't until he begins to chafe at lying with his belly up and makes to turn back onto his side that Erik realizes Charles hadn't simply tweaked his perception. There really is something warm on his belly.

Looking away from Charles is difficult, but Erik manages it. He's too curious not to look.

When he sees what it is, he doesn't know whether to be relieved or dismayed. Looking down himself and discovering Charles' hand has worked its way under his shirt is a special sort of difficult, one he has to put from his mind until after his friend has left.

Erik can only stare at it in wonder until Charles starts to splutter. "Oh! Terribly sorry. I just- I thought it might help you to have something to focus on. And, well, you've always been sensitive."

"You think I'm sensitive," Erik echoes, his own disbelief ringing in his ears.

"You're picky about what you wear,” Charles says, defensive. “At first I thought it was a remnant of your childhood, but it isn’t, is it? I remember you tried to sleep under a wool blanket once, and even though it was soft wool, your skin got all red and you spent the next two days scratching. And you left a few of your, ahem, outfits behind over the years. I couldn't help but notice when I washed them they were always softer than they looked."

Charles makes to take his hand away, but Erik catches his wrist. Without meaning to, he pulls it to his chest, placing it just above the distal end of his sternum. He doesn't look away from Charles as he does; whatever Charles thinks of it doesn't cross the border of their minds, leaving Erik to assume the slow circle Charles' thumb begins tracing over his jumpsuit means he doesn't mind.

He hasn't forgotten what they say about assumptions.

"You told me once that mutation inhibitors make you feel inhuman." Charles frowns but gives him a nod. "In that regard, you and I are not dissimilar. Having my gift taken away entirely has shown me how much I relied on it. People have no depth anymore. They feel like dolls. I have difficulty thinking of them as human. Is this how insanity begins?"

"No," Charles says slowly. "You haven't begun to go insane. You're far beyond that. I suspect you have been for a long time- longer than you've been here, possibly longer than we've known each other."

It takes Erik a moment, but with only the droning of the white walls and Charles' voice to think about, he feels a wash of relief. Insanity didn’t sound so bad the way Charles described it when they were young and their paths still overlaid each other.

"You," Charles says with a shake of his head, "are the only man I know who would like being told he's mad."

"I'm a singular man. You've said so yourself."

"True. Which is why I'm reminding you now. Your ego leaves a clear path to your mind. It's endearing when you aren't being annoying."

"So you're pandering to me now?" Erik flashes a grin. "Securing my well-being through backhanded compliments- not a bad idea. For you."

Charles sniffs. "If I wanted to be insulted, I would stay at home. Raven spent all of this morning telling me I dress like an old man."

"You should listen to her. No one under sixty should own that many cardigans, Charles."

"Yet I do. I like them. And if I find more I like, I'll buy them as well."

Chuckling, Erik lets that go without comment. Charles' wealth used to unnerve him; any time Erik mentioned liking something or considering purchasing it, Charles would want to buy it for him. Simply because Erik liked it and Charles liked Erik. He could get it, so why not? Nothing was too expensive- Erik found himself researching the most expensive, frivolous things just to see if Charles would keep offering.

Which he had. Every time.

Now all Erik feels is amusement. Cardigans. Charles is one of the wealthiest men in America, and his chosen indulgence is ugly cardigans.

"I can hear you, you know."

"Good."

"You're lucky I'm a pacifist, otherwise I might hit you."

"Surely having a mansion full of children you still secretly trained into a paramilitary force disqualified you."

"Only if I get caught."

They both let out a laugh at that, and if Erik's chest aches at the thought of Professor X and the X-men, Charles doesn't comment.

"I was going to tell you about the children," Charles says eventually. "Would you still like that?"

Erik nods.

Scratching at his jaw, Charles falls silent as he flicks through the students in search of the ones most like Erik. “I have to start with Ororo, I think,” he decides. “I've told you a bit about her before: controls the weather, lost her parents in an accident. She's a good girl, never malicious or intentionally cruel. Now she's comfortable at the school, she always wants to help. If it weren't for the way she talks about humans sometimes, I'd call her a perfect success."

Clearing his throat, Erik prompts him on, "Are you worried she might escalate?"

"I don't think so. But I've been wrong before. I have so much trouble sorting out what she says and what she feels and what she feels about how she feels…” Charles lets out a groan. “I can't go to the others about this. Their shields are too weak to keep the knowledge safe if one of the telepathic children loses control or decides to test out their powers. If Ororo found out, it would destroy her trust in me."

"There's an obvious solution."

"Is there?"

"You'll have to tell me everything.

Charles does. With little hesitation, he goes over every detail of concern he has for the little girl with Erik until, just before the guards begin to stir, Charles has a workable strategy.

Their goodbyes are short and bland, Erik already sitting up and Charles back in his chair by the time the guards arrive. Whatever his jailors think about Charles' visits, they only ever see two men calmly leaving each other's sides.

Erik is anything but calm.

His dreams, when returns to his mattress for the night, are always more vivid the nights directly after Charles' visits. They fade eventually, but tonight is one of the good ones, where Charles was here long enough that Erik's pillow smells like him instead of bleach and he can still feel the places where Charles touched him.

It has always been like this. It began when Charles latched onto him in the ocean and endured their parting Cuba. It hardly wavered when he saw Charles' wheelchair. It survived Erik's second incarceration, and it hasn't died in his third.

His dreams are bright, multi-colored things even if Charles isn't in them, and Erik would stay in the shelter of them longer if he could.

When Charles does enter his dreams, Erik has dreamt a thousand variations of what they do together. They run the school, they have dinner, Erik lets Charles slip a rig over him finger after a lifetime of thinking he would never have a home again; they kiss, they fight, they hate each other. They fuck.

He didn't get the chance to learn to please Charles before. All they ever actually had was one moment in the study, mid-match, recovering from something Charles said that made them both laugh. Erik had been so intent on not thinking about how much he wanted to touch Charles, he had reached for the piece in his next move, heedless of Charles doing the same. Their fingers had brushed, hardly a touch at all but enough light him up like a live wire. Charles' mouth had snapped shut, his eyes wide as he stared back at Erik over the board.

Erik isn't sure who leaned in first. If he had to guess, he would say Charles- for all he is the one who would rather hide away from confrontation, Charles is also the one who holds the reins of their relationship. He dove into the Atlantic. He gave Erik his memory of his mother back. He rejected Erik's way on the beach. He broke Erik out of the prison under the Pentagon.

Charles would probably say the opposite- that Erik is the one who has the power.

It hardly matters. They both ended up leaning in, close enough for Erik to feel Charles' breath on his face. Close enough to smell him. To anticipate the brush of skin over skin. To watch Charles' eyes fall closed and his head tip forward.

To knock his forehead on Charles' when Raven came barging in and they had to spring apart, Charles already complaining and Raven brushing it aside.

It's only natural for Erik to go back to that afternoon and picture what could have happened, had Raven not interrupted.

Erik would have kissed Charles. Those weeks in Westchester were more trying than the ones on the road. Erik had little to distract him from Charles on the estate: Charles encouraging the children, Charles misspeaking, Charles eating breakfast, Charles sitting close enough that Erik could feel the heat pouring off him. Every second he didn’t think of Shaw, he thought of Charles. Towards the end of that time, after he had his kiss ripped from his grasp, the ratio started to slip in a way it never had before.

He would have kissed Charles as hard and as long as he could that night in the study. If he had the chance now, Erik would do the same.

More than anything, though, he wants Charles to say he loves him.

He craves it like he craved cigarettes the first time the land of the free locked him away. Its absence wakes him in the night and plagues him during the day. He gets as hot under the collar thinking about Charles saying it as he does when he imagines him whispering the filthy sorts of things he wants to do in their bed. It gives him the same rush he gets when he thinks about Charles meeting him at the gate and waving him home.

This prison cannot hold Erik forever. He will get out one day, and when he does, he has plans. The first of them will be to see Charles in his natural world, where the light comes from a lamp and the walls are lined with old books. He will get that kiss, and nothing will get in their way.


End file.
